Today, June 20, is the summer solstice, the first day of summer in the northern hemisphere. Here it's the longest day (and shortest night) of the year. Whatever temperatures you've been experiencing the past few days, in this hemisphere it was technically late spring.
Now it's summer. Beginning today the days start getting shorter and the nights longer, a process which continues through late December when the winter solstice occurs sometime in the period December 20-22.
For those like us, who travel widely and often, today is also the first day of winter in the southern hemisphere. There will be skiing in the "alps" of south island New Zealand and maybe even in Oz. Summer people will have long since left Antarctica, only the handful of hardy year-rounders remain.
